


Valentine's Day, 1998

by LEDbiantastic



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-03
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:38:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15154187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LEDbiantastic/pseuds/LEDbiantastic
Summary: Ginny is really struggling in the wake of Luna's kidnapping. Full of love and rage, she writes Luna a letter. AU where Ginny and Luna started dating after Harry breaks up with Ginny at the end of book 6.





	Valentine's Day, 1998

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This takes place during book 7, The Deathly Hallows, after Luna is captured. GinnyXLuna, of course. I tried to stay in character, but I’m afraid a little bit of me slipped in. I wish I knew more details about Luna’s capture by Death Eaters. All I know from the book is that Neville says that they snatched Luna off the Hogwarts Express on the way home for Christmas. We don’t find out if he and Ginny tried to save her or not. I think it’s safe to assume that he and probably Ginny witnessed it but were unable to stop it. At least, that’s the assumption I’m basing this story on. 
> 
> Also in my headcanon, Ginny has curly red hair and so do the rest of the Weasleys.

Valentine’s Day, 1998

_My dearest Luna,_

_I know this letter will never get to you, so instead of starting out with: Where are you? Are you still alive? Are you okay?—All the questions I’d ask if I thought you’d ever read them—I’m going to say: it’s Valentine’s Day, I miss you, and I’m worried about you. I think about you constantly. Mostly to wonder where you are and whether you’re okay. But when I’ve told myself over and over that you have to be okay, you must be, then I can finally let myself think about how much I want to kiss you. _

_God, I want to kiss you so much, Luna. I go back in my memory and think of all the times I noticed your lips. So many missed opportunities. I want to wrap my arms around you and play with your hair and giggle as you try to count my freckles. Maybe this time you’d be able to count them all. Maybe this time I’d let you_ see _them all. It’s funny how unimportant self-consciousness and ‘taking it slow’ seem when you realize you might never get the chance to see where they lead. When you realize they were excuses born out of fear. My fear. Self-consciousness that all my experience with boys wouldn’t amount to anything with you, a girl. Choosing to ‘take it slow’ because I wanted to mask that fear, and because I wasn’t ready for how big my feelings towards you are, I wasn’t ready to get into another serious relationship. All of my internal objections from before us: that my feelings for you came too soon after losing Harry, that I had to make sure I really liked you as more than a friend, that you might not like me the same way, that I didn’t want to deal with the attention I’d get dating anyone after the ‘Chosen One.’ All of those just seem like time-wasters, unnecessary delays. Like each thought was a Dementor inside me, scaring me away from you. And now the scariest thing is that I waited too long, and our time together might be over when it’s barely begun._

_That was depressing. I was planning to write romantic, Valintine’s Day things in this letter. I was going to write about how I miss your voice, and your eyes, and your hair. Did I ever tell you that I’ve been wanting to try brushing your hair? I know you aren’t really interested in the ways people try to look beautiful, but my hair’s just so curly and I’ve always wondered what it would be like to brush straight hair. If I asked to brush your hair, you’d probably disinterestedly go along with it just for my sake. But I wonder, once I got started, if you might end up enjoying it? You like it when I put my fingers through your hair, and a brush can’t feel that different. I remember that time we were doing homework together in the library and you were in a chair and I was on the floor leaning against your legs. You weren’t thinking, and you started running your fingers gently through my curls while you read. I remember even back then thinking ‘this is nice,’ and knowing that ‘nice’ was an understatement. I remember wishing I could curl up in your lap like a cat and let you play with my hair forever. Oh Luna, I miss you so much._

_I’ve tried sending you so many owls, taking care that all the letters have been completely innocuous in case they fall into the wrong hands. I tried to come up with codes you’d understand. “Dear Luna, how are you? I miss you.” Means: please tell me you’re okay. “I hope you’re staying happy where you are.” Means: I can’t stand the thought of you surrounded by Dementors, don’t let them take away your hope. “Are you spending time with any friends?” Means: who else is imprisoned with you? “Miss you, Ginny.” Means: love, Ginny. Each owl I send comes back with the letter, and I can tell the letters haven’t been read. I know it’s absurd—owls can’t get to Azkaban. But some part of me is hoping that you’re not there. Maybe you’ve escaped and you’re on the run through the countryside, staying out of sight. Or maybe they’ve got you somewhere else, some other holding area we don’t know about that an owl could actually get to, unlike Azkaban._

_Luna, I’m so angry all the time without you. I’m angry that someone’s taken you away from me. I’m angry that there was nothing I could do to stop it, that I couldn’t help you when you needed me most. I fill with rage every time I remember watching men in black robes grab you and take you away, knowing that no matter what I did in that moment, I wouldn’t be enough to help you. For the first few weeks, every time Neville touched me I silently screamed “YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE HELD ME BACK!” Then I’d hear his response in my mind, what he said that day. “It’ll do her no good if you’re captured or dead.” But Luna, I’m not captured or dead and I’m not doing you any good either! I wish I could leave school and hunt down those Death Eaters who took you. I want to kill those Death Eaters, and then every other Death Eater, and then You-Know-Who himself. But I’d start with the ones who took you off the train and I’d make it slow and painful. I will make them pay._

_But it’s not just that. I’m angry about so many other things too. I’m angry at Harry for running off to fight You-Know-Who without me—without us. And I’m angry at Snape, for being a murdering, traitorous, huge git. And I’m angry at McGonagall for letting Snape run things. And I’m angry at Hagrid for trying to comfort me. I keep lashing out—in class, in the corridors, in the Great Hall. Even McGonagall can’t avoid sending me to the Carrows anymore. When they punish me, I hardly feel it. The only thing I feel is anger and the loss of you. I’ve shoved and nearly jinxed people who bump into me in the corridors. I’ve even lashed out at Neville; today I screamed at him that he is a spineless, useless squib. He walked away from me—I think he was crying—and avoided me all day, but before curfew he found me and said, “I understand,” and it was so exactly what you would have done that I almost cried._

_I’m not saying it’s your fault I can’t control my temper. I’m sorry if it sounded that way. I’m trying to say that I’m such a wreck without you that I’m having trouble keeping control of my temper. It’s like, worrying about you and missing you are using up all of my ability to care, and I don’t have any care left to care about not lashing out at people. Or it’s like I’m using up all of my self-control by stopping myself from running away to look for you, or stopping myself from just screaming all the time. So that any time even the littlest thing sets me off or catches me by surprise, I have no control left to control my reactions. I don’t know why I’m bothering to clarify this when I know you’re never going to see this letter. It just felt important that I say this, so I did._

_Luna, underneath my constant rage is the most worry I have ever felt. I’m so scared for you any time I let my mind wander to you, where you are, what’s happening to you. They could be torturing you—thinking of you in pain hurts worse than anything the Carrows can do to me. They could be starving you—that thought haunts me at every meal. They could be killing you—I swear every time I think this thought I see red and feel the need to run, to get out, to find you, and stop whatever they’re doing to you. They could have killed you already—with this thought I see black, I go cold and numb and I want to just give up or lash out at everyone indiscriminately. If you’ve been taken from the world, what good is the world anyway? If you’re gone, what’s the point of anything I could learn or say or do or feel? Sometimes I think: if you’re gone, what’s the point of fighting this war? But then I think about you and how much you care, and I think about getting revenge on those who would have killed you. And then my thought becomes: if you’re gone, what’s the point of surviving this war? _

_Luna, I’m scared of my own darkness. I’ve been part of this fight since I was 11, but I’ve never lost someone I cared this much about. The only one who’s ever been threatened was me. Well, and Harry, but the Boy Who Lived miraculously seems to keep on doing that. But, Luna, even the thought of losing you is making me feel like I’m losing myself in darkness and anger. It’s like you’re my lumos, and without you I don’t have a light and I can’t see anything but the drowning, forever darkness._

_Luna, there’s still so much left to do. We have to graduate Hogwarts together. We have to have sex for the first time with each other. We have to take trips and explore the world together, you hunting for Crumple-Horned Snorkacks and me trying to rid the world of Death Eaters and anyone using the Dark Arts. And after that we have to buy a cottage and settle down together. Kids? Do you want kids? Do I? Or if none of those things, we have to break up and then become friends again. We haven’t had our first fight, our first reconciliation. We’ve barely kissed. There’s still so many things I want to say to you, to do with you. I’m not ready for this to end. I’m not ready for you to end. I can’t handle it._

_I wish I could just leave and find you, but security’s gotten even stricter, if you can believe it. I couldn’t get out of here if I tried. Luna, if you’re not back by the summer holidays, I’m not going back to Hogwarts until I’ve tracked you down, I promise you that. I will find you and free you if you are not free. I don’t care if I have to fight You-Know-Who himself to get to you—I will._

_I don’t know what I’m writing. I know you’re not getting my letters. After the last letter—all full of boring platitudes like, “Dear Luna, how was Christmas? Mine was nice,” just in case it fell into the wrong hands—I had decided to give up on writing you at all. But then today I made Neville cry by saying all those horrible things at him and when he eventually found me later he said, “You should write her a real letter, say everything you really think and feel, and then throw it away or burn it.” I thought it sounded daft, but then I thought about calling him a squib and I guess I felt like I owed him something. Even something weird like this. Even if he says he understands why I was so mean._

_You always understand, even the most horrible thoughts I have. Why is that? I know you can’t be thinking the same things I am. You’re much too good to want to hurt and kill and scream and fight like I do. So how can you always understand? Or is it just something you say? I don’t know. I don’t even know what I’m writing anymore, I just wish I could be talking to you._

_Luna. Luna, Luna, my Luna. I wish you were here. I’d sneak out, even though it’s after curfew, just to be able to hold your hand again. I keep thinking about everything I would have done differently if I’d known I wasn’t going to see you after Christmas. I would have said, “I love you,” before we got on the train. I would have kissed you every day, even if there were people watching. I wish I’d snuck into Ravenclaw Tower with you so we could have fallen asleep together. I would have snuck you into Gryffindor tower to sleep in my bed with me. I wish we’d gotten the chance to sleep together. I mean that literally, I wish we could have lain in bed together, talking, whispering, laughing until we both zonked out. I wish I could have woken up—even just once, one morning—next to you. I think I’m trying to say that I love you. I do. I do love you, Luna._

 

Ginny sat back against the pillows she’d piled up against her headboard and blew out a puff of nearly-silent air. It was surely quite late, and all her dormmates were sleeping, hopefully. “Nox,” she whispered, and the dim light at her wand-tip went out. Holding the wand in her left hand and the quill—tip up—in her right hand, Ginny rolled her shoulders back and felt them crack. She’d been sitting hunched over her parchment for too long. Ginny let the ink dry as her eyes adjusted to the darkness in the girls’ dormitory. In those dark, silent moments, Ginny felt different. She was almost at peace, content, for the first time since she returned from the Christmas holiday. She carefully placed the quill in her right hand down on her bedside table. _Neville was right,_ she thought, _writing down my thoughts and feelings did help. I’ll have to thank him tomorrow._ Ginny moved the book she’d been using as a hard surface out from under the letter and, leaning down over the side of her bed, quietly placed it on the floor next to her bed. She rolled up the parchment, which was almost as long as the legs it had been resting on.

Ginny opened the window and held the parchment outside with one hand. She stuck her wand through the window and murmured “Incendio.” The end of the scroll opposite her hand caught fire. As the wisps of smoke drifted lazily into the night air, Ginny willed them to go: to find Luna for her, to send Luna her thoughts. As though responding to her unspoken request, a breeze blew the smoke away from her window. Right before the flame reached her hand, Ginny dropped the parchment and watched the end get consumed by the fire as it drifted down beside the tower, a phoenix feather bright as hope in the darkness, before it disappeared.

 

* * *

  

Miles away, Luna sits up in the basement of Malfoy Manor. Though there are no windows, she had smelled the faint scent of smoke and it had aroused her from sleep. She shuts her eyes, trying to remember what she’d been dreaming about and recalled an image of darkness with a spot of fiery red, like a burning ember, like Ginny’s hair. She smiles wistfully, thinking of Ginny. In this moment, she feels somehow closer to Ginny than she has since she’d been taken by the Death Eaters. She feels Ginny’s presence. Eyes still closed, Luna imagines everything she would say to Ginny, and sends her loving thoughts to Hogwarts—Ginny must be at Hogwarts right now. She feels sharply hopeful for the first time since she was locked down here. She knows, almost like prophecy, that she will see Ginny again.


End file.
